It’s Not What It Looks Like
The Effect of 2020 on Ontario Public Sector’s High Earners
Abstract: The Ontario Sunshine List - - reported a higher-than-projected _____ members. Facing increased debt and considering the financial effects the pandemic had on many, a narrow look at the numbers may prompt some to argue for immediate cuts. The following is a breakdown of the OSL in 2020 and through time that attempts to learn more about the source of the increase. I determined that most of the excess increase came from two sectors in particular, hospitals and schools, completely in line with a responsible response to the pandemic (regarding direction, the magnitude requires further investigation). After all, the government is responding to a health crisis first, social second, and economic last.
Summary: * A * B * C
This Report (Issue)
What is the OSL (Background)
A sunshine list is the name commonly given to the public disclosure of employee compensation (salary, benefits, severance). In 1996, then premier Mike Harris, introduced the first Ontario Sunshine List, intending to disclose the salaries and benefits of all employees on the provincial government payroll who were considered high earners. Setting the floor at a salary of $100,000, the province reported ____ high earners that year, with an average salary of ____.
Uninterrupted Growth
The number of people in the Ontario public sector making more than $100k a year has increased with every release since its conception 25 years ago. It was twice as big by 2000, ten times by 2008, and today the list is 45 times larger than in 1996. Regardless, the yearly average earnings have remained mostly constant around _____, likely because increasing existing salaries are compensated by the new additions to the list, most of which earn a salary close to the floor. From Fig 1. we can already see that 2020’s list saw a growth larger than the trend predicted.
### Recorded by Government Sector
The data provided is categorized by government sector. While these sectors change slightly year-to-year as a result of administrative changes and operational restructuring (See Appendix:__ for a full list), we can functionally group all employees reported in 9 independent groups. Fig 2 and 3 show the number of people in the list as well as their average earnings through the time divided by sector.
While the size of sectors variate through time, we can see from Fig 2 that Municipalities, School Boards, Hospitals, and Universities have captured the lion share of high earners for the past five years.
Fig 3 shows how average earnings by sector differ from the average trend observed above. While most sectors seem to remain mostly constant between $100K and $150K, Universities and Ontario Power Generation have seen a generally upward sloping trend and Hospitals avg salaries have been decreasing. Further investigation is required to learn more about the cause for this trends.
Long Summary by Sector in dollars
2020 in Review (Context)
Municipalities, School-Boards and Hospitals
Adjusting for Inflation (Considerations)
Only 8% Remain
Violin Chart of OLS adjusted for Inflation
Universities, Universities, Universities
Sector Summary 2020 Adjusted for Inflation
A Recession with Unparalelled Growth (Analysis)
Overall growth higher than expected
Predicted values
The Culprits
Predicted values by sector
Adjusted for Inflation… things get messy
Predicted values